


untitled document

by stoprobbers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Normal High School, F/M, Idiots in Love, Jancy Fic Week, Love Letters, Romance, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-20 21:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14902634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: He usually does his work in Word.That's what he blames it on. That he usually writes his papers in Word, not GDocs.Otherwise the whole thing is far too embarrassing.





	1. Chapter 1

He usually does his work in Word.

That's what he blames it on. That he usually writes his papers in Word, not GDocs.

Otherwise the whole thing is far too embarrassing.

+++

Nancy Wheeler is in four of his classes, and she sits next to him in three.

His preferred seat is in the third row of four, one row from the very back, closest to the window. Sometimes, when he can't keep his mind in one place, he'll stare out into whatever day is outside the cinderblock walls and try to project himself out there, into an unknown time and space, anywhere that is not _here_.

But Nancy likes that seat too, and she never drags her feet on the way to class. Never ducks behind crowds of giggling, gossiping girls to listen in on what rumor they might be spreading that day, to steel himself for the slew of notifications he'll inevitably get when a teacher's not paying enough attention, or when school lets out for the day. She bounces along the halls, curly hair swinging along her shoulders, and in those four classes she gets to that desk first.

And Jonathan sits next to her, one row in, close enough to the window that he can look out it if he wants. But he never does.

Neither does Nancy. She always pays careful attention, takes careful notes, ignores the buzz of her phone tucked into her backpack. And he traces her profile with his eyes, backlit by the sunlight outside, out of the corner of his eye.

They don’t really talk. "Hey" and "How are you" and "Oh my god that test was _ridiculous_ " when he picks Will up from her house, or she picks Mike up from his. He wants to say more but the words get stuck in his throat. She smiles, nods at him, and leaves.

She'll grin at him the hallways, too, sometimes, but never says much more than that. Sometimes asks him what he thought about the reading when he settles in next to her at the beginning of English. But mostly he sees her flirting with Steve Harrington in the hall or talking to Ally Comers in the seat in front of her. She used to hold lengthy conferences with Barbara Holland, but Barbara moved away abruptly when her father lost his job and Nancy's eyes took on sadness around the edges.

He's not sure how many people noticed that change; it was subtle, in the duller sparkle of her blue irises and the barest wrinkle at the corner of her mouth from the tension in her jaw. He wishes he could take a picture of it. He wouldn't dare.

If she notices him looking at her, she never lets on. He wonders if she thinks he's just trying to copy her notes. Jonathan gets good grades, but almost no one's grades are as good as Nancy's. Especially not now, not at the end of junior year when they're all leaning into college applications and the chance to get out of their shitty, shitty town.

They have just four weeks left of school when their AP Lit teacher announces their final project. A paper, written in partners. Some research, mostly close reading.

He's sure the class's groan can be heard down the hall.

Mrs. Koch hands out a list of titles to choose from, pre-approved books they'll never have a chance to get to read in class, and tells them to partner up.

He knows he's easy prey in this scenario; he's banking on as many scholarships as he can win to get him to a prestigious school to study photography, and that means he's not going to let this paper slide. He tries to hold back his sigh as he waits to see who descends upon him first.

He doesn't expect it to be Nancy.

"Hey Jonathan," she says, whipping immediately around to him. "Be my partner?"

"W-What?"

He fights off a wince, tries to suppress a blush. He feels so _stupid_ whenever she talks to him. She leans in closer and he instinctively does the same.

"You _know_ everyone else just wants us to do the work for them," she says softly. He can't hold back his chuckle as he nods. "You and me, I bet we could knock this out in like a week right? I say we just do it and use the extra time for other finals, y'know?"

He's not sure which makes him giddier: the idea of partnering with Nancy, or the idea of screwing over their classmates.

(Oh, who is he kidding, it's the latter. He can't wait to get out of Hawkins and never speak to a single one of them again.)

"Sure, let's do it," he agrees with a grin. "It'd be nice to end the year without having to do all the work in a group project."

She sticks out her hand. He shakes it.

"Deal," she says.

The students around them curse as they turn away, start looking for other partners. Nancy winks at him.

"So what do you want to read?" he asks, shifting his desk a little closer and turning his attention to the list of books. He's read a lot of them – he reads a lot in his spare time, at his job at the movie theater, when he's home keeping an eye on his little brother. He secretly hopes she picks one he's already read, just to make this project even easier. It's not wrong, he thinks, to want the world to take it easy on him just this once.

(OK, so he hopes the world will take it easy on him more than just this once. But so far in his life it hasn't, and he figures this is as good of a place to start as any.)

"Honestly?" There's a crinkle between her eyebrows he thinks may mean she had an idea from the start. "I've been wanting to read 'Atonement' all year."

He has to bite his lip to hold back a full-blown smile; he read that one about a month ago, would only need to skim it to bring back all the vivid details.

"Works for me." He tries to keep his shrug casual. "So how do you want to do this?"

"Well, I need a night or two to read. But I'll start a GDoc and send you the link, and we can, like, take turns? Take turns adding to it and then next weekend we can get together and edit. Does that work for you?"

There's a pang of disappointment in him, a hope he hadn't given mental voice to that this would mean they'd actually get to spend some time together outside of their little brothers. But there's a rush of relief too, because he doesn't know what they'd do with that time. Doesn't know what he'd say to her, not really; he knows they'd probably just sit in silence instead.

Maybe, by the time they're in the same room to edit this final paper, he'll have come up with something to say.

"Sure, that works for me," he agrees, thinks that's the end of it. Is surprised when it’s not.

"Can you start it?" she blurts out, embarrassment evident in her voice. She looks down at her desk briefly, then back up at him with a sheepish expression. "I'm terrible at starting papers. I'll write the conclusion if you'll do the intro, promise."

Jonathan can't help it; he laughs. He wonders if she knows the tips of her ears have gone slightly pink with embarrassment.

"No problem," he answers with a shake of his head. "Conclusions are always hard for me, anyway."

Nancy smiles at him, bright as the sun, and it makes the blood just under his skin go warm. He smiles back, tentatively, and looks away before he can blush outright.

He shifts his desk back into its neat line and feels Nancy's eyes on him until the teacher pulls their attention back to the lesson.

+++

He's set his book aside, is letting the emotions process through him for a second time; the sadness, the betrayal, the anger, the helplessness, the regret. He's surprised, almost, to find he feels more strongly this second time around.

He wonders why. A small voice inside of him says it's because he recognizes himself not a little bit in Robbie; a poor kid in a lower station in love with a beautiful girl, so far above him on every level. Of course, it's not a perfect corollary; his mother isn't the Wheelers' housekeeper, they live outside the rigid class system of pre-WWII England, he's certainly never written Nancy love letters and then been ostracized from her life due to the meddling of her younger siblings. He's pretty sure she has absolutely no idea he's harbored a crush on her for the last few years. But in Robbie's passion and pain he finds bits of himself. His chest aches with the empathy.

His phone dings on the bed beside him, pulling him from his thoughts. When he glances down at the screen he sees it's after midnight and winces.

Maybe he's not really identifying with Robbie at all; maybe he's just _tired_.

Below the time is an email notification from Nancy, no subject line. He sets the phone on his nightstand, nearly falls off the bed reaching for his laptop and pulling it onto his lap. It's an old, refurbished MacBook, clunkier and heavier than his classmates', but it still works. It just takes a minute to turn on, is all.

In that minute he starts to feel the weight of the day behind his eyes; the classes, the after school job, the responsibilities at home, the scholarship research, the homework. He wonders if Nancy feels the same; if her jaw aches and eyelids droop from the pressures of her life as well.

He wonders if Nancy is done with the book yet; wonders if she sees herself in Cecelia at all. Does she recognize the pressures of the prized older daughter, the demands for beauty, grace, poise and intelligence, the insistence she follow society's prescriptions instead of her heart? Does that all confuse her, does it make her feel superfluous?

He wonders if she's ever talked to anyone about that. Barb, certainly, before she moved away, but anyone else?

He wonders if Nancy keeps her feelings tucked in close under her ribs, if she only lets them out in shadow. He wonders if she would let him slip into those shadows and let him see what she hides from everyone else. He thinks he'd like to see it; he thinks he'd like to show her his most hidden thoughts and feelings in return.

He shakes his head at his own idiocy and pushes those thought forcefully away. Clicks on Nancy's email instead.

It's simple; beyond simple, it's minimal. There's just a link and two words: "You start!!"

He chuckles and clicks the link. A document opens in a new tab - the file name simply says 'untitled document.' It is blank save for a centered line at the very top:

"Atonement, The Paper: Jonathan and Nancy edition"

The smile spreads over his face, unbidden. He covers his mouth to hide it, then to catch the yawn that bubbles up behind it. 

When he lowers his hand his fingers move across the keyboard faster than his brain can keep up.

_Sorry, it's late. It's really late. It's late enough that I can't remember the 371 pages I just read, or anything else I did today. It's all a blur of color and exhaustion. Everything except you. I can see you clearly, one row over in class. You never look out the window; how do you never look out the window? I always want to, and so I turn but my eyes never make it past you. Do you ever feel me staring? You have to, I can't look away. Your profile in silhouette hypnotic, the angles and curves of your face giving way to the cloud of your hair. It is beautiful. You are beautiful. I hope someone tells you that you are beautiful._

_Sometimes when I'm tired like this I'll close my eyes and trace your profile and wonder if our angles would fit together, and if your lips are as soft as they look_

He stops abruptly, hands flying away from the keyboard like it's a hot stove. He stares, wide eyed, at the words on the page in front of him and then laughs again, an empty and angry sound.

"Jesus Christ, get a fucking grip," he says aloud to himself. Uses two fingers to hit cmd-w hard, two loud snaps like fingers snapping him out of his fantasy.

There is a churning, hot feeling in the pit of his stomach; his brain's not to cooperate with that directive. The least he can do is take it away from the computer, though, from their shared project. So he snaps the laptop shut, slides it onto the far end of his nightstand, and shuts off the light.

In the dark he sees Nancy in profile, backlit by daylight in the teachers' parking lot. She doesn't keep her attention forward now, though; she turns to him instead. Her lips curl into a small, knowing smile, and she turns towards him. There is no space between their desks somehow, and her hand slides across the polished wood surface until her fingers can brush his wrist.

She says something, low and seductive, but the words are lost to his sleep

+++

Jonathan rockets away at 5:32 a.m. with a gasp.

His fingers fumble first with his sheets, then the lamp. He reaches for his laptop and almost drops it as he yanks it onto his lap. Nearly breaks it when he opens it.

The tab is closed, it's gone, but his brain is screaming "GDoc! GDoc!" at him. He opens her email again, clicks the link with a shaking hand. And, like his nightmare, the two paragraphs he wrote are still there.

He highlights them without a second thought, is about to hit delete when he realizes that at the very bottom of the white space beneath his words he can see the tops of more letters.

His stomach rolls and he thinks he might throw up from mortification.

He steels himself and scrolls down.

 _You have no idea, do you?_ It says and he squeezes his eyes shut briefly before forcing himself to read on. _I sit in Mr. Clarke's physics class and try to understand the swoop of your hair. I watch you too, when you actually get to class early enough to get the window seat. I wonder about the corner of your jaw and the column of your neck and the scent of your shampoo and something else, too, I'm not sure what. I wonder if it's your dad's aftershave, if he left that behind and you have it, or maybe it's just you, just your skin. I think about getting close enough to find out_.

He can't breathe. In the gray early morning light he is sure he is hallucinating. He has not woken up. He is still dreaming.

He closes the tab, closes Chrome altogether, restarts his computer. Instructs himself: breathe in, breathe out.

Nancy's email is still open when his Chrome reloads. He clicks the link, lets the GDoc load.

His words are still there. He scrolls down.

So are hers.

He stares at the screen until the light burns, then closes the laptop and sets it on the floor next to his bed. Stares at his ceiling until his alarm goes off.

When he gets to English class Nancy is already in her customary desk, her notebook open and pen ready to take notes. When he slides into the desk beside her, she turns to him and smiles. It's friendly and open and if there are secrets behind her eyes he can't see them.

"Hey," she says. "Did you finish re-reading? I sent you the GDoc link."

"Yeah," he tries to keep his voice steady, "I got it."

Her grin widens slightly, and something slips into her gaze that makes his breath catch in his throat.

"Good."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note the higher rating. it's warranted, for reasons that include some words you may recognize if you've ever read "atonement."

He doesn't understand what she's playing at. 

They don't talk about it in school. They never say a word.

But when they are out of each other's sight they leave trails of words like breadcrumbs. Whether it's to provide a safe retreat or lead him to a new destination, Jonathan doesn’t know.

 _You looked tired at school today_ , he writes behind a locked bedroom door when he should be doing his homework. _It wasn’t dark circles, it was the light that's usually behind your eyes – it was dim. Like the sun inside you went behind a cloud. You looked so far away. I wanted to ask what was wrong, wanted you to lean your head on my shoulder and close your eyes, steal a nap or unload your burden. I can't imagine what burden you're carrying, but put it down. You're brilliant, you're beautiful; you don't need to be hard on yourself._

Waiting for her to reply is torture. He tries to focus his mind, to not refresh the document every five minutes. It's a useless wait. He used to be _so good_ at compartmentalizing; it was the only way to survive how ugly his parents' marriage got before his mom finally kicked his dad out. And sure, Nancy would go traipsing through his thoughts then, but he wasn't trying to tune her out. She was as welcome a distraction as any music.

He puts on _In Rainbows_ and attacks his trig homework like it has personally wronged him.

He brushes his teeth, washes his face, wishes his mother and brother goodnight, sheds his jeans and his shirt and shuts off his light. But he can't resist sliding his laptop into bed with him, checking one last time.

 _I would, you know,_ she's written. _I think about your shoulders when I'm tired. They look.. don't laugh, they look comfy. Like I could rest my head in the dip between the roundest part and your chest and just drift away. Your shirts always look so soft, too. Sometimes I see you at lunch, out on the bleachers by the baseball field, if it's not too cold. You lay there with your headphones on and your face turned up to the sun and I think about crawling on top of you, listening to your heartbeat and letting you drum out the rhythm of the songs on my back instead of on your stomach. I think about that whenever it's warm and the sun is shining._

Jonathan swallows hard, closes the laptop gently and sets it on the floor beside his bed. Words are threatening to burst from him, things he shouldn't say, not yet at least. Instead he lays back on his bed, double checks his alarm is set on his phone, and closes his eyes.

There is music playing softly in his room, the end of a playlist meant to calm him, but there's no stilling the vibrations in his blood.

Behind his eyelids he is laying on the baseball field bleachers, the warm, late spring sun shining on pale skin hidden under sweaters for too many months. He is listening to something rambling, meandering, light. When he feels the hands on his thighs he doesn't jump; he knows the delicate digits, their soft touch. They slide up his body, to his hips then his waist then his chest, before a warm weight settles carefully on top of him. He can smell Nancy's shampoo as she rests her cheek on his chest, and his hands come up automatically to hold her steady, balanced on top of him and a narrow aluminum plank. His right hand slips onto her lower back, the sliver exposed between the bottom of her shirt and the hem of her jeans, and taps along to the intricate guitar part.

He can feel her chuckle as a light bouncing on his chest and stomach, then the shift of the body on top of his, straining, reaching. He can feel the brush of soft lips on the underside of his jaw as he tips his head up to see what's going on, catches Nancy's eye for just a moment before her craned neck presses her lips against his.

He wakes up with a hard on and a new resolve to make all of this real.

+++

_I'm going to fail AP Euro because of you. I couldn't stop staring at you today, with your hair up and the shirt your wore that falls off your shoulders. All I could do was look at your neck and think about what your skin would taste like there. I wanted to start at the little knob at the very top of your spine, kiss each vertebra and smell your shampoo, scrape my teeth against your jaw. I know you wear perfume; I wonder what it tastes like. Does it taste like the flower petals I smell, or will it sting like vodka? The sting would be worth it, every time._

****

_Ally stole my seat today, did you notice? I mean you must have, I saw you look over to where I usually am when you sat down. She's upset because Jason broke up with her, she wanted to stare out the window instead of pay attention to class, but that meant I ended up behind you. I know boys don't care about clothes like girls do, but Jonathan you need new t-shirts. The one you wore yesterday was stretched tight against your shoulders, across your back, enough that it's going to rip soon. Maybe you don't know it, but you've gotten so broad, and instead of solving problem sets I spent the entire period thinking about what it would feel like to run my hands over your back, over your shirt and under it. I think your skin must be smooth and warm. I wondered if it tastes salty. I was thinking about licking your spine when Mrs. Ingrahm called on me. It's a fucking miracle I didn't get detention._

_What is it like to take your picture? I had a dream last night that you were in my bedroom, posed in my sheets. No one else was home, just you and me. You were wearing that dress from last week, the one that's long and loose and I know, I can see, you're not wearing a bra with it. You had your back to me, looking over your shoulder, as I took picture after picture. Your eyes were huge, your lips were wet. You slid one strap down your shoulder than the other. You started to turn to me and I lowered the camera and then I woke up. I couldn't fall back asleep, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Would you let me take your picture, Nancy?_

_Do you sing? I hear you humming sometimes in study hall; you always have your headphones in, I don't think you know you're doing it. I don't know half the songs you hum, but yesterday I made sure I sat across the table from you so I could try to hear. You have a nice voice, Jonathan – you're always on key, and you hum lower than I'd imagine. I'll make you a deal – you can take my picture if you make me a playlist and sing along with it to me while you're shooting. You're not the only one who dreams, you know. I dream that you're in my bed behind me, wrapped tight around me, and you're singing a song in my ear. You're touching my chest, my stomach, lower and lower, but you never stop singing. I don't really know what the song is, but I think I've heard it before. I think I've heard you humming it. I'd like to know what it sounds like with your lips against my neck._

_I keep dreaming about you, Nance, you won't leave me alone. In the day, at night, you never leave me alone. I can smell your perfume in the hallways at school like a ghost, following me around all day. I think if I followed it I might find you waiting for me at the end of B Hall, near the science labs. I think about slipping into the lab storage closet – the one with the microscopes, not the one with the chemicals – and pulling you in with me, running my teeth over your collarbone and my hands up your skirt. I think about the sounds you would make – would they be high and soft, or would you moan low in your throat? I think about kissing you against my car in the parking lot. I think about climbing in your bedroom window and trying not to wake up your parents._

_You should._

+++

 

Her invitation stops him cold, and takes over his head like an invasive species.

Is it an invitation, is it really? Or this just some sort of madness they share that's gotten well out of control? Are they just stir crazy in this awful little town, desperate for anything that's not the well-worn path of basketball games, gossiping outside the movie theater, and fumbling backseat fucking at Lover's Lake?

He's reread "Atonement" half a dozen times now, has tried to put words onto paper that they can actually turn into their teacher and get a grade on. Not the pages and pages of letters they've written to each other about things that would get him laughed out of town, or maybe beaten to a bloody pulp behind the baseball field. Maybe they've just fallen into the weird fantasy of the novel, he thinks, so desperate to escape their boring little lives that they're playing out a romantic tragedy whose end they know is heartbreak and death.

In case that's the truth he keeps his laptop carefully hidden from their little brothers. He doesn't need Will or Mike stepping into the role of Briony.

He hasn't written anything in two days; neither has she. Those words sit at the bottom of the GDoc, taunting him. _You should_. He should what? He should find her at the end of B Hall, take her into the supply closet? He should kiss her against his car in the parking lot? He should climb in her bedroom window?

In class, in the halls, nothing has changed. She still smiles politely at him, still offers bland but friendly grumbling about how much work there is at the end of the year, still checks in to make sure they're going to go over their English paper together this weekend. If he's in her thoughts as much as she's written, in the way that she's written, truly she doesn't let on.

But he swears things have changed, a little. Her perfume is stronger, as if she's dabbed more on in the morning; it doesn’t float over to him on the soft breezes of the school's ventilation system and instead follows her around like a cloud, leaving traces of itself on his skin when she brushes too close. She brushes too close more often, too.

She wears more skirts, more dresses. He tells himself it's just because summer is finally here, bringing with it the sticky, stifling humidity that seems to be the only kind of heat Indiana can offer its citizens, and she's trying to keep cool. He tells himself that for a week until she comes into school Friday wearing the dress he dreamed about.

It is deep green with strings for straps and an uneven hem and a plunging neckline, just barely on the right side of getting sent to the principal's office for showing so much shoulder and sternum. The air conditioning is running and he sees her in the hall with a jean jacket over it, silently thanks whatever deity might be up above for it; his mouth runs dry anyway. But when she settles down next to him in study hall, just one seat over to his right, she takes it off. Her hair is pulled up again and as he glances over all he can see is the length of her neck and the perfect smoothness of her shoulders and one of the straps precariously close to falling down.

His reaction is immediate and he shifts carefully in his seat to try to hide it.

"Hey," she starts, turning towards him and his eyes are wide and his heart is pounding. He clears his throat, nods. "So our paper—"

But before she can get further a body inserts itself between them, blocking his view. All he can see is a gray shirt with a Nike swoop and light, acid wash revival jeans. By the time the body has started to talk, Jonathan's heart has sunk.

"Hey Nance," Steve says leaning on the table between them as well, a wall of a human severing whatever connection Nancy had been about to make.

"Hey Steve," she says, and Jonathan catches a glimpse of her hair as she tries to see around the older boy. Steve shifts a touch, making sure her view is well and truly blocked.

"I've been texting you. Haven't you gotten them?"

"Yeah, sure, hey listen this isn't—"

"You never used to ignore my texts." By the way his arms move Jonathan thinks he's put his hand over his heart. "That smarts."

"Well, it's the end of the year, I'm trying to finish all my finals. I mean, we're not all seniors."

"Yeah but I've only got a few months left before I head off to college. We don't have much more time, Nance."

Something about the way Steve says 'we' makes Jonathan's stomach turn. It's soft, familiar, _intimate_.

What they've been doing in the middle of the night in the document, it's nothing. Silly fantasies at best, temporary insanity most likely. An illusion, most definitely. A lie.

He suddenly feels so, _so_ stupid.

Nancy is saying something firmly to Steve, but embarrassment is making Jonathan's ears ring. He stands up, shoving his notebooks back into his bag quickly, pulling his phone out of his pocket as if he's gotten some sort of message. It's silent and dark but he looks at it quickly anyway, a façade he desperately needs to keep from dying of mortification on the spot.

"Hey, wait—" he hears as he shoulders his book bag and turns on his heel to head out of the library. He ignores Nancy and walks quickly. He can hear Steve say something as well, and another voice he think is probably Tommy utter something cutting and sarcastic, but he shakes his head and keeps going. He's almost at the doorway when a hand grabs his upper arm, spins him.

Nancy is flushed and looks worried.

"Where are you going?"

"I, uh, I have to go. My mom texted, she has to stay late at work, she needs me to pick up Will."

"Oh." Nancy drops her hand from his arm, looks down at the ground. Jonathan thinks he might see a flash of disappointment there. His arm is tingling where she was touching him. "Okay then."

"Yeah," he breathes and turns to leave, but she reaches for him again. When she does the strap finally loses it grip, finally falls. For one dizzying second he is back in his dream and she is on his bed, looking at him so invitingly over her bare shoulder. In the library their eyes lock, and hers are so wide, so blue, and so deep. He wants to fall into them, but then she blinks and fixes her strap and the spell is broken.

"You're still coming over Sunday, right? To, uh, to edit?"

"Yeah, of course," he answers automatically, but his mind is spinning. Everything feels like far too much.

"Um, okay," Nancy looks like she wants to say something else. "See you, then."

She doesn't move, leaves it up to him, but Tommy is running his mouth again and Steve is snickering at something and Jonathan shakes his head, turns on his heel and leaves.

+++ 

Saturday, he writes.

Well, first he wakes up from a fitful sleep, glares at his ceiling, calls himself every bad name in the book – the ones his father called him, the ones his father called his mother, the ones he's just seen floating around on the internet – and forces himself out of bed.

He wishes he had work to take his mind off things, but his mom makes him take the last three weeks of the school year off in order to focus on his finals. Jonathan has resented being poor lots of times, resented having to work when other teenagers just get to hang out, but now he longs for it. He'd much rather be selling tickets to shitty movies than thinking about Nancy.

And he cannot stop thinking about Nancy.

His mother notices how irritated he is at breakfast, his brother does too, but neither of them say anything. He makes a bad excuse about finals and studying and locks himself in his room for the rest of the day.

He grabs the book, grabs the spiral notebook in which he has taken actual notes, made actual efforts towards the goal of turning in an A paper. He grabs his computer last.

Opening the laptop is a mistake. The tab with the untitled document is still there, still open. There are pages and pages of letters, almost fifteen of them, he sees. His fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment.

_In my dreams I kiss your cunt, your sweet wet cunt. In my thoughts I make love to you all day long._

He stares at the document for a long moment, a little surprised and a lot rueful. That's Robbie's letter, not his; the short, vulgar little message that sets the entire book he has to write about into motion. Compared to the ridiculous, flowery fantasies he's put onto those digital pages in the last week and a half it is horrifyingly blunt. But it doesn't feel like a lie. He's dreamed these things too; Nancy's body bare before him, his mouth between her legs, her thighs over his ears. The feel of her around the most intimate part of him, how hot she must be, how soft. The way her nails would feel scraping down his back, how close she would hold him.

For the briefest, wildest moment he considers putting everything aside, allowing himself to fall fully into the fantasies, to let the heat travel through his body and to give himself some relief. But that's not fair; Nancy's a real person, a real girl he's known most of his life, a girl he likes a lot in a lot of different ways. She's not just a body and not just a fantasy and not just a means to an end.

Nancy's a person he owes something to, as well. He owes her what promised he'd do.

He looks at Robbie's letter, Robbie's confession, for a moment longer. Then he highlights it, and hit delete.

It is the only thing he has ever erased from that document, he realizes.

He closes Chrome, sets his computer's study lock for six hours. Then he gets to work.

+++

He can see Nancy's bedroom window as he walks up the Wheelers' front path, reluctantly pulling his headphones off and around his neck. He can see just how he'd get up there – there's some sort of meter or air conditioning unit he could use to launch himself onto the roof and from there it's just a few steps to tap on the pane. The temptation is, momentarily, overwhelming.

But there are two cars in the carport and when Nancy texted she just said what time to come over, so he bites back the urge and knocks on the front door.

He makes polite small talk with Mrs. Wheeler in the front hallway, says hi to Mike as the younger boy goes running past him with Holly on his heels. His heart is pounding hard enough that he feels like it's trying to crawl up and out of his throat with every beat. Briefly regrets having eaten breakfast; he's pretty sure he's about to throw it up.

Nancy comes to the top of the stairs and smiles at him and he manages a weak grin in return.

She gestures for him to come up and he follows, saying goodbye to her mother as she calls up for Nancy to remember to come down for lunch in an hour.

He moves in a trance as he follows Nancy into her soft pink bedroom. He hasn't been in it in years, but it looks mostly the same. Maybe a few more posters than he remembers, all of actors and singers he doesn't really know that well. He's on the verge of judging but remembers if she came into his room she'd probably think the same thing.

She closes the door softly behind him and he curses himself for being so nervous.

"Hey," she says softly, standing nervously in front of him.

"Hey," he replies, just as soft, his fingers digging into the strap of his book bag. She's got her hands clasped together, wringing them to have something to do, and for whatever reason that snaps him out of it.

"Hey," he says again, not a greeting this time but an aside as he pulls his bag around to his chest and starts digging into it. "Listen, I don't know why, uh, I wrote what I did but—"

"No, Jonathan—"

"No, hold on, hold on, listen, I didn't mean to make anything weird or awkward—"  
  
"You didn’t—"

"—and I definitely didn't mean to mess up any of the end of your year so," he finds what he's looking for, pulls out a small stack of paper encased in a clear plastic report cover and holds it out to her, into the space between them, like a peace offering, "here. I wrote the paper, you can take a look and we can make any changes you want."

She's staring at him, eyes scanning rapidly between his hand and his face. He feels the moment stretch between them, making the air impossibly thin.

Then she smiles and shakes her head and reaches behind her. She's got her own sheaf of papers in her hand, and she holds it out to him now.

"I wrote it too, last night," she says with a soft giggle. "I didn't really get any work done in the last week and a half. But, uh, you already know that."

He does know. But he can't do anything but blink at the paper she's holding out to him, his own hand still hovering in space. She clears her throat, returns her work to the desk behind her, and takes a step closer to him.

"Jonathan," she says softly. His hand drops to his side and she takes another step towards him. "Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?" he whispers, his voice shaking and rough.

"What you wrote." Another step.

She's right in front of him now and he can smell her, her perfume and her shampoo and that undercurrent of girl and skin and Nancy. It makes him dizzy, makes the barrier he usually keeps closed between his brain and mouth short circuit.

"Yes." Her eyes seem to widen a fraction more and her pupils dilate as he holds her gaze, and it makes him suddenly bold. "Did you?"

Her mouth works for a second like she's trying to formulate an answer, but no sound comes out. He feels her hands fist in his shirt a fraction of a second before she pulls, tugs him forward to close the inches between them.

Their lips meet and he inhales sharply through his nose.

He's only done this a couple times before, mostly with girls at camp. It was awkward, so much terror and overthinking. Now his arms wrap around Nancy's waist instinctively, pulling her tight against him. One of her hands plunges into his hair, the other cups his neck. Her mouth slants beneath his and her lips part, just barely, and that's all the invitation his tongue needs to slip inside.

She makes a soft sound at that, something between a squeak and a moan, and it's beyond everything he's ever imagined.

His bag falls to the floor but he doesn't notice. Doesn't know how they make it from standing in the middle of her bedroom onto the bed. Doesn't know who maneuvers what where, just knows that suddenly he has his back to her floral pillows and she's straddling his lap and running her hands up and under his shirt, pushing it up until he has no choice but to lift his arms and let her pull it off.

"Nancy," he pants, as she dips her head back down, runs her teeth down his neck and starts to kiss the top of his chest. "Nancy, what—"

"You think too much," she says against his skin, but sits up anyway, looks him in the eye. Her hair is a mess thanks to his hands and he can feel his sticking up all over the place too. Her mouth is swollen, her cheeks are flushed, and he wonders what the fuck is wrong with him, why he stopped her, stopped them. His brain, though, is apparently somehow following the conversation.

"We've barely spoken for years," he points out. "Not until… Nance, I don't know why I wrote what I did. I didn't mean to tell you."

"I'm glad you did, though," she says, and shifts on his lap in a delicious way. "I didn't know how to tell you either, until you started. I don't think I would have figured it out. I'm glad you did."

He has to laugh at that. "I didn't figure anything out, I was just tired. Tired and full of thoughts about 'Atonement.'"

She grins at him, tip of her tongue caught between her teeth. "And here I thought you had figured out my plan right from the start."

Her _plan_?

"Your _plan_?" He's gaping, he can feel it, and her eyebrows raise in surprise.

"You think I just randomly picked 'Atonement'? I mean I didn't know exactly what would happen but Jesus, Jonathan, how naïve do you think I am?"

"How was I supposed to know?!" he splutters, something warm and wild rising in him as she keeps giggling at him. His kneejerk reaction is to push that feeling down but he's topless under her and she's got a purple spot just under her jaw that he put there just a moment ago, and for once he tells his kneejerk reactions to shut the fuck up and turns them so she's under him now.

Her arms come up and wind around his neck and she's still smiling, still looking so pleased with herself.

"I had no idea," he admits, nuzzling his nose along her jawline. "It's me, I'm the one who was naïve."

"Hmm," Nancy hums and he lifts his head to look at her. "Does that mean I get to corrupt you?"

He doesn't know what to say to that, not when her nails are scraping over his chest and sending shivers down his spine. Instead he clings for one final fleeting moment to reality before he gives himself over fully to her.

"We do have to finish that paper," he reminds her and kisses her before she can say anything else.

+++

Jonathan really does like the bleachers next to the baseball field. Among all the shitty things in their shitty, shitty suburb, they are among the short list of good things.

The list is growing, though.

He closes his eyes against the sun, concentrating on the red behind his eyelids. Wishes he had thought to put in his headphones, but unwilling to move to get them. It's a narrow bench, so he focuses on staying balanced in the middle of it. Listens to the sounds of the school instead. He can hear yelling in the distance, a scream that sounds like Carol, probably reacting to some stupid thing Tommy has done. Can hear cars starting up in the senior parking lot. Can hear birds chirping and a coach yelling out drills to the baseball team. Can hear soft footsteps up the stairs near his feet.

He stays still, waits. Doesn't jump when two hands touch his waist, slide up his chest. When a warm weight settles carefully on top of him.

Nancy rests her cheek on the dip between his shoulder and his chest for just a moment before he feels her nose nudge his chin. He lifts his head and smiles as she cranes her neck, presses her lips against his.

"Did you get our paper?" he asks between kisses. Mrs. Koch had handed them back that day, but he had a meeting with the guidance counselor about scholarships and had to leave class early.

Nancy hums an affirmative, braces herself on his chest so she can look down at him better. He blinks up at her as her face stretches into a wide grin.

"We got an A."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This is entirely fakelight's fault, and existed primarily in an email i sent to myself with our conversation in it that was subject lined "idk maybe actually do write this." So blame her. 
> 
> 2\. Thank you to Jancy Fic Week for giving me a good reason to put it on paper - this fulfills Day 2 (Alternate Universe) and Day 4 (Modern Times). I am genuinely surprised I got it finished in time for those days. 
> 
> 3\. I am never writing another teenage love letter as long as I live. You have no idea how many I deleted. I now very strongly feel for Jonathan in this fic. Good job, boyo, it's HARD. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. I really hope you enjoyed :)

**Author's Note:**

> Jancy Summer Fic Week, Days 2 and 4


End file.
